Whether you’re trying to destroy or erase data from your hard drives when the FBI knocks on your door, or just want to securely, and permanently do emergency data destruction to protect yourself from identity theft, before you sell or recycle your computer, there’s an easy solution.
The free open-source boot disk utility, called Darik’s Boot and Nuke (DBAN), automatically and completely deletes the content of every hard disk it can find on, or connected to, your computer when you run it.
The bootable DBAN can run from CDs, DVDs, thumb drives, and floppy disks.
The process is easy:
WARNING: THIS WILL PERMANENTLY ERASE ALL DATA ON ALL HARD DRIVE HOOKED TO THE PC!!!
1. Boot from the DBAN floppy or CD image.
2. Enter ‘autonuke’ at the boot prompt.
Darik’s Boot and Nuke website is here.
Click here to download the exe to write the image to a floppy disk.
Click here if you don’t have a floppy disk, and would like to create a DBAN CD image instead.
Keep the disk in a safe place. If it falls into the wrong hands your system could be toast, or just a big toaster.
Tags:Computer,
DATA,
DBAN,
emergency data,
ERASE,
floppy disk,
floppy disks,
hard disk,
Hard drive,
how to wipe your hard drive,
PERMANENT,
permanently,
source boot disk
Related posts
Written by Jason on July 31st, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1340 and 1354 and 1426 and 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and 544 and Contributors and PERMANENT and computer and hard disk and hard drive and permanently.
For some years now, I still prefer to use a desktop over a laptop. Perhaps a lot of it is due to the fact that I am not a mobile person meaning I would prefer to stay in one secluded place to work rather than carry a notebook and find places such as Starbucks or any socially populated place where I can work as I wish. Sad to say, I prefer to be pinned to one place with no one to bother me.
This reasoning will surely draw a lot of criticism. For one, desktops are bulky (although there has been a lot of modified designs these days), making it impractical to transfer or bring along wherever you may be. The choice of whether you want to use a desktop or laptop hence depends on the nature of your work. If you are the blogger or programmer, you would want to have a desktop in one place where you can just sit down, focus and do your work.
Laptops on the other hand are for the mobile executives. Normally you would see people in sales or executives who rarely stay in the office as having them. They are not the type who will use a computer to do programming or even graphics designing. They need these laptops to aid them in presentations or even in receiving and sending email.
So as far as determining on which you would want, don’t just consider the price. Be practical and select the one that suits your needs. It is all about defining what you really need as far as computers are concerned.
Written by PC Freak on July 18th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1340 and 1354 and 1426 and 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and 544 and Contributors and Desktop and Desktops and Laptop and blogger and hard drive.
This guide shows you how to run the check disk (chkdsk) command from the System Recovery Options included on the Windows Vista DVD.
So your computer won’t boot up and you need to run check disk (chkdsk) on it to try and repair errors on the hard drive. This guide shows you how to run check disk by booting from the Windows Vista DVD and running check disk from the System Recovery Options command prompt.
Run Check Disk from a System Recovery Command Prompt
1. Place a Windows Vista DVD in the DVD drive and restart or turn on your computer.
2. When asked if you want to boot from the CD/DVD press any key on your keyboard to say yes. You might have to press F10 or a similar key to boot from a CD/DVD. See your computer manufacturer’s manual for help with that.
3. Once your computer has booted from the DVD, choose your language options and then click Next.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. Select the operating system you want to run the check disk command on and then click Next.
6. Click Command Prompt in the System Recovery Options window.
7. Now you have a command prompt open where you can run check disk from.
See my guide on how to use check disk for information on how to use check disk.
Tags:boot,
Check Disk,
chkdsk,
command,
command prompt,
Computer,
dvd,
dvd-drive,
Format,
guide,
Hard drive,
Prompt,
Recovery,
Windows,
windows vista,
Windows Vista
Related posts
Written by Jason on July 12th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1354 and 1426 and 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and 544 and Boot and Check Disk and Contributors and Format and Guide and Prompt and Recovery and Windows Vista and chkdsk and command and command prompt and computer and dvd and dvd drive and hard drive and windows.
1. System Start-up packed with too many applications (Start-up overload)
Over time, as you add more and more programs to your computer, many of these applications automatically add themselves to your Windows Start-up folder. Additionally, these applications can add themselves quietly to a hidden area of your Windows Start-up system (accessed via the MSCONFIG run command). In extreme cases your PC will appear completely frozen.
Limiting the number of applications loading themselves at start-up can speed boot times considerably and increase overall system performance.
2. Spyware
Malicious programs that stealthily embed themselves into your Windows Registry and core file system are the number two most common cause of a slow PC or poor PC performance.
These applications are usually installed without your knowledge or consent during the installation of a “free” application you’re trying out, or pushed out automatically in the background when you visit websites that engage in this practice without the user’s knowledge.
These spyware programs must be removed as soon as possible to return your PC to top running speed, and before they damage your file system.
In some cases they can be removed by manually editing the Windows core file system and registry or by using an automatic spyware remover like XoftspySE, our favorite pick for spyware removal and cleaning.
3. Corrupted/Bloated Windows Registry
The Windows Registry is the master control center for your operating system and applications it runs. Corruption or overload registry issues can cause all sorts of pc performance problems, including poor application startup times, slow Windows start-up, extremely slow shut down, inability to resume from computer sleep and more.
Cleaning, compacting, and optimizing your Windows registry can go a long way to dramatically speeding up your computer’s performance, start-up and shutdown speed.
4. Badly Fragmented Hard Drive
The sixth most common reason for a slow PC is hard drive and file system fragmentation. Over time, your computer’s files can be scattered into bits and pieces located all over your hard drive. This is called fragmentation. Windows has a built in tool to help you with hard drive defragmentation:
* Open My Computer,
* Right-click once on your C: Drive and go down to “Properties”
* Select the “Tools” tab and choose the “Defragment Now” option and follow the step by step instructions.
5. Poor Security Software that is stealing system resources
Unfortunately, a large number of security software programs and suites out there demand a huge portion of your system resources and memory. This can lead to sluggish performance from the rest of your PC while your security software is constantly scanning and monitoring your computer for threats.
While threat detection is essential, some security vendors go overboard with their approach and drag your PC down with them.
To see how much memory and system resources your security software is using, press and hold CTRL+ALT+DELETE and choose the task manager.
Once the task manager is open look at the “processes” section to see how much of your system resources are being used by your security apps.
6. Remnants of uninstalled programs
Uninstalling an application either via the control panel or the application’s start menu folder has been known to leave behind remnants of the uninstalled program. These remnants can slow down your computer while Windows tries to figure out what to do with them. Additionally, residue of old program stays behind in your system registry, clogging up your PC’s core.
7. Pagefile
The Windows page file is a temporary area of memory that your computer uses to move files around while it processes functions. Basically, it’s a buffer that your computer uses for wiggle room. If your Pagefile is too small, your operating system won’t have enough room to move and you could end up with poor performance and error messages.
To increase the size of your Pagefile:
* Right-click on “My Computer” and go down to “Properties”
* Click the “Advanced” tab
* Click “Settings” under the “Performance” section
* Click the “Advanced” button
* Click “Change” under “Virtual Memory”
8. Hard Drive getting full and too many internet temp and windows temp files
If your hard drive has less than 10% free space, you will experience a dramatic slowdown in the performance of your PC. To improve this, free up some space by removing old documents you no longer use or programs that are no longer needed.
9. Virus
Closely related to Spyware, viruses can wreak havoc on your system’s performance and severely limit your PC’s ability to do what you ask it to.
Typically, viruses get onto your computer via infected email or instant messages, although they can also be installed via applications or files that you download from file-sharing networks and other non-trusted web sites.
10. Hardware Problems
The fourth most common cause of a slow or freezing computer is gradually dying internal hardware components. These can often show up in the form of slow boot and shut down, as well as poor program launches riddled with errors.
There are very few hardware diagnostic utilities out there, so we recommend careful removal of any newly installed pc components to see if they are causing a problem or incompatibility. Other than that, taking your PC to a certified, trusted hardware repair shop is usually a good idea.
Tags:command,
Computer,
defragment,
Fragmentation,
Hard drive,
Hardware,
Internet,
knowledge,
memory,
msconfig,
Performance,
registry,
Removal,
Software,
speeding up your computer,
Spyware,
system performance,
system registry,
Virtual,
Windows,
windows registry
Related posts
Written by Jason on July 6th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1354 and 1426 and 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and 544 and Contributors and Defragment and Hardware and Internet and Performance and Software and Spyware and Virtual and command and computer and hard drive and memory and msconfig and registry and system performance and system registry and windows and windows registry.
For people who have computers for quite some time, you would normally notice that your CPU would be as silent as possible. Aside from perhaps the fan or when your CD drive loads, you would hardly hear a thing.
When you boot up your PC, the beep is all you expect to hear. But what if you suddenly hear something weird such as clicking sound? Chances are you will open it up and try to find if there is something malfunctioning. In some cases, you may notice that it is coming from your hard disk. Once this happens, rest assured your hard disk is about to give way.
Hard drives have a certain life span. Some say it depends on the brand but others say that they are just the same. The thing here is that your data and files are perhaps the most important stuff to be considered. Once weird sounds start, you better start backing up your files by writing them on CDRs.
If you value your files and important documents, you should do it immediately. While you can make use of the hard disk drive for the meantime, you never know when the next time would become the last. Some say that files can be retrieved from bad sectored hard disks. But once you hard disk no longer responds, chances are you will say bye bye to all the files and the hard drive.
At this point all your hard drive can be is paper weight. It is no longer usable as powering up will just be futile for you and your hope of retrieving your files.
Written by PC Freak on June 27th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1354 and 1426 and 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and 544 and CPU and Contributors and hard drive and optical drive.
1. Open the command prompt with administrative privileges by clicking the Start orb, All Programs, Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
2. Type defrag c: -b (assuming you want to defragment files on your C: drive) and then press Enter on your keyboard. You could also type defrag –b to defrag boot and application files on all hard drives.
3. You won’t see any output in the command prompt during the defrag process.
4. When it’s finished defragmenting a new line will appear in the command prompt.
Note: You can stop a defrag running from the command prompt at any time by pressing Ctrl+C on your keyboard.
Tags:administrator,
application,
boot,
command,
command prompt,
defrag,
defragment,
Hard drive,
how to,
Windows,
windows vista
Related posts
Written by Jason on June 8th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1426 and 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and Boot and Contributors and Defragment and Windows Vista and administrator and application and command and command prompt and defrag and hard drive and how to and windows.
In order to improve performance and reduce the amount of time spent waiting to view Web pages, Internet Explorer stores many of the Web pages and graphics you have viewed in a folder on your hard drive. Next time you revisit a Web site, Internet Explorer can use the content stored in the Temporary Internet Files folder to display the site content, instead of retrieving them from the Web.
You can manually clear the contents of this folder in Internet Explorer by selecting Internet Options for the Tools menu. From the General tab, simply click the Delete Files button. You can also configure Internet Explorer to empty the contents of this folder when you close your browser. To do so, select the Advanced tab from the Internet Options window. Under the Security section, select the option to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed and click OK.
Tags:automatically,
Explorer,
Hard drive,
ie,
Internet,
internet explorer,
Performance,
Security,
Temporary,
temporary internet files,
Web
Related posts
Written by Jason on May 10th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and Contributors and Explorer and Internet and Internet Explorer and Performance and Security and Web and automatically and hard drive and ie.
Slow computer getting you down? Wish you could speed up your system so that games won’t crawl by like a slide show permanently set to slow? Well look no further! I shall share five easy steps that you can take to improve your system’s speed! Most of them are free of charge, and all of them should have some effect on your system. So without further ado, we begin with:
1. Remove spyware and adware from your system. Have you noticed recently that ads seem to pop up whenever you go to a Web page? Or that Internet speeds are about that of diseased livestock? Your system’s probably chock full of spyware. What to do? Well, thankfully there are several things you can do. First, download either Spybot-S&D or Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware, and run it. This should remove most if not all of the spyware and adware on your system. Neither of these are particularly robust, however, so we move on to:
2. Remove viruses from your system. Get yourself a decent virus scanner program. Big names include MacAfee, Symantec, or Norton. By the way it should be mentioned that virus scanners like the Big Three tend to be huge. Big, beefy programs that can chew up RAM faster than Dudley Dursley chewed up Harry’s birthday cake. If this is a problem for you, take a look at avast! avast! is a free virus scanner that can be downloaded, but be careful. Phishing sites love to pretend to be “free virus scanner software” and so you have to be careful. Yes, avast! is a respected name and is not a virus, but only if you actually download it and not some trojan.
3. Defragment your hard drive with the disk defragmentation tool, usually located in Start / Programs / Accessories / System Tools. This useful little program will improve performance by compacting your data so that your programs aren’t all located in tiny little bits. Some people might argue this point, saying that defragmentation doesn’t actually improve anything, but look at it this way: it never hurts at worst, and at best has a chance of improving your runtime! So where’s the loss?
4. Remove dust. Buy some cans of compressed air (yes I’m aware of the irony of purchasing a can of air. No, I do not wish to purchase any bridges today). Using this compressed air, blow the dust out of your system. That dust does your CPU no favors and a thick, liberal coating of dust tends to collect when you leave your computer running in a dirty room. Oh and by the way, after you’ve blown all that dust into the air, it’ll settle. All over your carpet. So you might wanna vacuum later. Just an idea.
5. Clean your registry. CCleaner is a good registry fixer that’ll fix all those broken things in your registry. By the way, don’t go mucking about in the registry without backing it up first. If you do not do this, then I cannot be legally responsible for any time rifts, space distortions, or world wars caused by unexpected changes made by CCleaner. That said, properly done, a registry change often helps in improving performance. Also check your startup programs: there are programs that are set to start as soon as Windoze boots, and this can cause Windoze to start up slower. Removing a few (AIM is a good one) might improve your startup process. You might keep your hair a bit longer, too.
One final bit of advice. Oftentimes I’ll see on PC-building Web sites people wondering why their computer is “running so slowly even though they have the best gear.” The word of advice? Check your PSU (Power Supply Unit). How far do you suppose you’d get if your car’s gas tank had a maximum capacity of 2 gallons of gas? Would you want such a car? Well, your “awesome gear” won’t get too far on a puny PSU either. If your computer’s operating much slower than you’d expect from your hardware, consider replacing your PSU with one that can actually handle your power-hungriest parts (usually your CPU and GPU). Calculators for what wattage of PSU you might need are all over the Web. Just to be safe it might be better to go 50 watts or so above the recommended, just in case you decide to add something else later.
Tags:adware,
ccleaner,
Clean,
Computer,
CPU,
defragment,
defragmentation,
disk defragmentation,
Game,
Hard drive,
Internet,
internet speeds,
lavasoft,
MacAfee,
PC-building Web,
Performance,
RAM,
registry,
remove,
scanner,
speed,
spybot,
Spyware,
startup,
symantec,
virus,
viruses
Related posts
Written by Jason on May 5th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and CPU and Contributors and Defragment and Internet and Performance and Ram and Spyware and Virus and computer and defragmentation and disk defragmentation and hard drive and registry and remove and speed and spybot and startup.
Nowadays everyone needs to have a little eye-candy on their desktop and, although most of the people that use the Mac Terminal can easily be considered as being a little bit on the geek side and will always prefer functionality over good looks, I’m pretty sure that none of them will refuse having a really nice looking and always ready Terminal at their disposal, just a key shortcut away.
And, by saying it will be just a key shortcut away, I don’t mean that you’ll be able to launch a Terminal windows each time you’ll push the magic button combination. No! The Terminal will just slide down over your Mac’s desktop and will hide again under the menubar when you will not need to use it anymore. Just like the Quake-like console I mentioned in the title.
SIMBL and Visor
How can this be achieved, you ask? Well, it couldn’t be any simpler! All you will have to do is to install SIMBL, download a plug-in and place it in the right location on your Mac’s hard-drive.
Just in case you’re wondering, SIMBL allows you to easily hack into a Cocoa application and patch it to change its behavior according to your own taste. Don’t worry now because you will not have to do any hacking around on your beloved Terminal because other people have already done it for you and have packaged all the necessary changes into an easy deployable plug-in.
The SIMBL plug-in that will do the magic and transform your Terminal into a Quake console is named Visor and has been created by Blacktree. This little guy is the Terminal Tooth Fairy all the geeks have been waiting for – at least the game loving geeks out there that have been wishing for such a thing right from the first time they’ve written a command inside a game’s console.
How it’s done
Let’s get to the actual steps that you will have to go through to be able to enjoy the Terminal heaven I promised you since the beginning.
First Step
Go HERE and install SIMBL. The installation will go like a charm, and the only thing you will have to do throughout the entire process is to agree to the license and push that ‘Continue’ until the finish.
Second Step
Go HERE and install the Visor SIMBL plug-in by copying it to the following path: ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins.
Third Step
Restart the Terminal and take a look in your menubar, in the notification area. That little black icon representing a shell prompt says: YOU’RE DONE!
Configure your new toy
Now that you’re done with the boring part, let’s get to the thing that will help you make the most out of your new toy. To configure Visor you just have to click on its icon in the notification area and select ‘Visor Preferences’ from the menu.
The first thing that you will have to configure is the hotkey that will trigger Visor. Next you can select a Quartz Animation to be played inside the Visor Terminal window in case you’ve had enough with the transparency or the image backgrounds that the Terminal already allows you to customize.
The ‘Transitions’ preferences allow you to specify if you want Visor to slide and/or fade the Terminal window while it appears/disappears from and into the menubar. If you are a hardcore eye-candy lover, you can select both because the effect is quite nice and will surely draw a little bit of attention while you’re playing (to read, ‘writing down the weird looking shell commands that allow you to do stuff via text interface just because it looks cool’) with your revamped Terminal.
The last option to be set is that of whether you want the Visor status menu item to be shown in your menubar or not. I recommend you let it be so, because you never know when you might grow bored with the present screensaver you have embedded in your Terminal (yes, screensavers do come in Quartz Animation format and yes, you can set them up to run inside your terminal with the help of Visor - just as an example I’ve used a screensaver named Green Time just so you can see it can be done).
The last (blurred) touch
If you are all setup and enjoying the extra eye-candy, I guess you just could be up for more. There is more SIMBL sweetness ready for your Terminal out there in the wild and I’m just going to mention another bit of it here. The plug-in that I want you to get acquainted with now is named Blurminal and, I suppose, you’ve already got an idea of what it is capable of.
As you might have already guessed, Blurminal is a one-trick pony and, clearly, it has something to do with blurring. The trick is that, upon placing the Blurminal bundle inside the SIMBL Plugins folder, it will blur the image showing underneath the Terminal window – that is if you have setup your Terminal to be transparent, so you can be able to see what is happening behind it.
To install Blurminal go HERE and place the included bundle file into ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins. After doing that, restart the Terminal and try to get a look of what’s behind it. If the image looks blurry, then everything is set and ready to go.
Now, if you have a MacBook of course, go out there and impress people with your new super-charged Terminal. Also, if you have other tips for beautifying the dull environment inside everyone else’s Terminal windows, let us know about them.
Tags:application,
Blurminal,
command,
download,
functionality,
Hard drive,
Mac,
mac terminal,
macbook,
Quake-like,
Support,
Windows
Related posts
